The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Modi has given its ex-post facto approval for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in November, 2015 between India, and United Kingdom for Cooperation in Public Administration and Governance Reforms.
The form of co-operation under the MoU will be in areas like sharing good governance practices in public administration, User led service design, Reducing bureaucracy in service delivery, Government Process Re-engineering, Building and developing staff capability, Public Grievance Redress Mechanism, Local Government Reforms, Reforms towards strengthening of social security, Collaboration in strategies for promotion of ethics in Government, Collaboration between Government and Industry on staff management, Mechanisms for public engagement, Crisis and Disaster Management and Digital transformation of Government.
A Joint Working Group on Public Administration and Governance will be responsible for implementation of the MoU.
The MoU will help in understanding the system of customer oriented public service delivery in UK with reference to rapidly changing environments in the area of public service management and enable in replicating, adapting and innovating some of the best practices and processes in the Indian Public Service Delivery System, leading to improved public service delivery in India.
The First Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is scheduled to be held later this month in London.
Background:
Provision of Citizen-Centric Online Services is the foundation of an efficient public administration system. It leads to transparency and accountability in the governance and fosters equitable growth.
Government of India has taken up a goal of quantum shift in online delivery of Government Services across the country. This aims to further Government’s efforts at revamping of Public Administration system, Public Grievance Redress Mechanism, ushering in e-Governance, Digital India, etc., more so in the context of the goal of ‘Minimum Government with Maximum Governance’ through e-Governance based Citizen Centric End-to-End On-line Services.
As part of its efforts in seeking international collaboration for initiatives in Good Governance and Administrative reforms, DARPG has so far entered into bilateral MoU with China, Malaysia, Singapore and with Brazil and South Africa (trilateral).
The recent MoU with United Kingdom is a step in that direction as UK also ranks high in the UN E-Government Survey.